Play To Kill

by P. J. Tracy

  Harley pushed back from his computer and rubbed his burning eyes. 'Roadrunner, dump the programming work and give me a hand here.'

  'What are you doing?'

  'Well, I was thinking that if our bride drowning was pre-advertised, maybe there were pre-posts for the other five murders.'

  'Not a bad idea, but I can't do it, Harley. We're way behind on programming'

  Harley rolled his chair over to Roadrunner's station and spun his friend around to face him. 'Listen, we can get the new program up and running within a week, and what's the prize for that? Verifying that what look like dead people are really dead people, instead of some asshole teenager's idea of a video prank. But if we find other posts forecasting the murders we know about, then maybe we find a pattern, maybe we find some new posts in time to save some lives.'

  Roadrunner tugged at the denim creases bunching around the backs of his knees. 'Well. No contest, then, is there?'

  Harley shook his big head. 'Not to my way of thinking.' He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at where Agent Smith was sleeping on a couch. 'Don't know how he's going to feel about it, though.'

  Smith rolled his supposedly sleeping head and opened his eyes. 'Go for the posts,' he said, then turned over.

  'It might delay the new software.'

  'Go for the posts,' Smith repeated.

  An hour later Roadrunner entered the last command with a single push of the enter button, and text started scrolling up his screen. 'Holy mackerel, Harley. They just popped up. Every one of them.'

  Harley's motorcycle boots pounding across the wooden floor startled Smith awake. What's going on?'

  Harley was staring at Roadrunner's monitor, rocking on his heels, slab arms folded across his chest, grinning. 'Holy shit. Holy rosy shit. I'll tell you what's going on. My little buddy here found forecast postings for the city murders. Every goddamned one of them. Even our river bride is on the list.' He gave Smith a hearty slap on the shoulder when he came over to read. 'How about that?'

  'How the hell did you find them?'

  'Oh, man, this was so cool. I kept trying these broad search programs on words and syllables and anything else I could dream up an algorithm for, and all the time I was so pissed at this idiot because he couldn't even type. Kept hitting the shift key in the wrong places, capping letters that shouldn't be capitalized, missing ones that should. And then

  I noticed that "city of lakes" was the only part of the header with typos. Every other word was perfect, and that seemed weird. Take a look.' He enlarged the Minneapolis post on the screen.

  CiTy oF laKes. Bride in the water. Or would that be a groom? Near beer.

  'See? The first, third, sixth, and ninth characters are capped. So I did a search on that specific pattern of caps and lower-case and this one popped: "CiTy oF anGels. No home. Near pier."

  'That's the L.A. murder,' Smith said. 'The victim was a homeless man found under the Santa Monica Pier on June 4th.'

  Roadrunner looked up at him. 'This was posted June 2nd.'

  Smith pulled up a chair. 'Let me look at the rest of them.'

  'It's all right there.' Roadrunner rolled aside to make room for him while Harley hovered behind his shoulder.

  'City of Rock?' Smith read.

  'Gotta be Cleveland,' Harley said. 'The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is there. And look at that - City of Longhorns. That's Austin.'

  Smith nodded. 'And here's Chicago - City of Broad Shoulders. And City of Starbucks is obviously Seattle. My God. That's all of our five, plus the Minneapolis river murder.'

  'Jesus,' Harley muttered. 'What kind of a sick game is this guy playing?'

  'It gets worse. Take a look at this.' Roadrunner punched the page down key and Smith's face went a little gray 'Page two. This is an old post, from January. "City of Big Water. Hole in one. North Shore." Same typo pattern, same general format, but I don't know if it's a pre-post for a real murder. Any chance your guys in Cyber Crimes missed one?'

  Smith closed his eyes briefly. 'That's been a concern since we received the first video. Remember, the only reason we found five was because the sites sent us the murder films when they were posted.'

  Harley grumbled. 'If that's a real one, the vic's toast by now. What about the last one?'

  "City of Roses. Bert's barmaid. Near deer."

  'When was it posted?'

  'Let me check.' Roadrunner fiddled on his keyboard for a few seconds and pulled up a new screen. 'Okay, here it is. Posted on… oh, Jesus.'

  'What is it?' Harley leaned closer to the monitor.

  'It was posted last night. This one may not have happened yet.'

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  Magozzi was sitting at his desk with the morning's fourth mug of coffee, staring out the window at the steady rain and the swarm of colorful umbrellas with legs that were fleeing the streets and disappearing into the downtown office buildings. The downpour had started early, just after dawn, riding in on a massive bank of black clouds that had settled into an indefinite stall over the Twin Cities. At the moment, it was making glacial progress eastward, drenching the center of the state with triple the expected rainfall. Assuming that a storm system of such biblical proportions would be easy to spot on Doppler, it seemed odd to him that the meteorologists hadn't given any advance warning on the news last night. Hell, maybe this was an act of God. Or a portent of doom. Or both.

  He hadn't slept much after he'd safely delivered a tipsy Chelsea Thomas to her uptown Minneapolis house last night. Probably a combination of too much beer, too much grease, and too much conversation about things that were going on in the world that could drive anyone with a soul to consider suicide. Or perhaps it was the unexpected hug, warm and genuine, that she'd given him in the car before dashing up her front walk and letting herself in with a final, grandiose wave goodbye…

  'Leo? Hello?'

  Gino was suddenly standing next to him, looking wet and bedraggled.

  'Oh… morning, Gino.'

  'Are you even awake?'

  'I'm not sure.'

  'Good. Me either. What's with this rain bullshit, anyhow?' He shucked off his blazer, exposing a pristine white shirt and intact tie, but the front of his pants were visibly wet, the cuffs still dripping water over his sodden loafers and onto the floor.

  'What the hell happened to you?'

  'Oh, I was so hoping you'd ask. Angela needed the car today because the Volvo's in the shop - again - so she dropped me off at the corner. And guess what? The storm drains are backed up, there's a foot of standing water in the streets, and I'm the lucky guy who was on the curb when some cowboy in an SUV decided to run a yellow light at thirty-five miles an hour. My toes feel like stewed prunes and I'm not even going to take a stab at describing what cold, wet undershorts are doing to other parts of my anatomy right now.'

  'I appreciate that more than you know.'

  Gino sank into his chair and ran a hand through the blond hedge of his buzzcut like a squeegee. A mist of water rained down onto his desk blotter. 'So where is everybody?'

  'McLaren and Tinker caught a call at a rental on Blaisdell; landlord and tenant got into it and one of them ended up at the bottom of the basement stairs with his head in pieces…'

  'Man, you're just daisies in the morning, Leo, you know that?'

  … almost everybody else is working the "suspicious death" in Little Mogadishu.'

  'Ah. I heard about that one on the news on the way in. Seven bullet holes in the kid, and right away someone labels it suspicious.'

  'That's the one. And Gloria's at the dentist.'

  Gloria handled the phones, the files, and ran roughshod over all the detectives in Homicide. She was almost ebony- black, lived on fast food and flamboyant clothing, and tortured Detective Johnny McLaren's Jack Sprat frame with every single swing of her generous hips. She was also one of the few people in the world who could out-sass Gino, and leave him happy about it, which was a rare and wondrous gift.

  'Damn. Gloria was the onl
y bright spot I expected in this day. What was she wearing?'

  'That tiger-striped thing she always wears to the dentist. Root canal this time, and she's going to be mean as a wet cat when she gets back.'

  Gino grunted. 'Not that anybody'll be able to tell the difference. And what happened to you last night? Tried calling you at ten, you weren't home, and not to put too fine a point on it, but you look like crap. Almost hungover.'

  'Bad sleep and not much of it.'

  'I get that. I had nonstop nightmares about nuking everything with a circuit board in my house.' His eyes drifted to the huge, cellophane-wrapped wicker basket that monopolized the entirety of Magozzi's desktop. 'Is that a fruit basket?'

  'Yeah.'

  'What's up with that?'

  'It's from Judge Jim.'

  Gino frowned. You busted the guy's balls last night and he sends you a fruit basket? That doesn't make any sense.'

  'Maybe he doesn't get many visitors.'

  'Well, shit. Give me a banana. So how was your meeting with the profiler last night?'

  'Interesting. Depressing. Scary.' Magozzi ripped open the fruit basket, tossed a banana to Gino, and grabbed an apple for himself.

  Yeah? Did he tell you anything you didn't already know?'

  'Kind of. And it's a she, by the way.'

  Gino waited patiently for further edification while he peeled his banana, and when it didn't come, he leaned forward on his elbows. You're a million miles away, Leo. So who exactly is this "she," and are you going to tell me what she said that has you so doped up, or is it rated X?'

  'It's rated G. But she had some insights.'

  'Like?'

  'Like the Web is normalizing deviant behavior.'

  'Is there anybody in the world with a Ph.D. who actually speaks English?'

  'She does, and everything she said made a scary kind of sense.'

  'Oh, man. She's either one good shrink, or she's a part- time supermodel, if she's got you jumping on the psychobabble wagon train.'

  Magozzi gave him a warning glance. 'Do you want to hear this or not?'

  'Sorry. Go for it.'

  'There have always been the natural born killers, and there always will be, and of course they're going to use the Web, just like everybody else in the world.'

  'Well, yeah, we kind of figured that out already.'

  'But, there are also a lot of people on the cusp - disgruntled, twisted, deviant, whatever - who might normally never act on their urges in the real world because there's no catalyst to push them to the next level. And some of these types actually understand that what they're feeling is antisocial and wrong. Enter the Web - a safe, fantasy forum to communicate with like-minded people. "Hey, Joe, you fantasize about raping and killing women? Me too!" Get a blog with fifty or a hundred or a thousand guys like Joe talking to one another, and you've got yourself a whole new culture with its own morals and code of conduct.'

  Gino grimaced like he'd just swallowed a bug. 'Christ.'

  'It's a support structure. And her assumption is, it can escalate into reality from there. How many of the school shootings in the last few years would have happened if Columbine hadn't happened first?'

  'So what we might have is a bunch of amoral whack jobs telling the other amoral whack jobs out there that it's A-okay to murder, and then they all start believing it for real?'

  'Yeah. Like that.'

  'Sounds like Lord of the Flies and a twelve-step program for homicide all rolled into one.'

  'That's what she's afraid is happening. That the Web is actually enabling these monsters and the community is getting stronger.'

  Gino put down his half-eaten banana and stared at it.

  Long ago he'd come to the point in his life where he believed he'd seen it and heard it all, the worst of the worst that humanity had to offer. But if this were really happening, he'd been pretty goddamned wrong about that. 'How can she sleep at night with all that crap running through her head? I mean, I've come up with some pretty crazy scenarios over the years, but even I couldn't dream that shit up. How the hell are we supposed to keep up with something like this?'

  Magozzi shook his head. 'I think that's why Cyber Crimes is task-forcing this thing nationally.'

  'I should have known this day was gonna suck the minute that asshole in the SUV gave me a shower. So what did she think about my traveling-serial-killer theory?'

  Magozzi looked to the side with a pained expression. 'That, believe it or not, would be the best-case scenario, just like you said. Unfortunately, she thinks it's a disconnected group of killers talking to each other on the Web, playing some sick kind of one-upmanship game.'

  'Aw, man, Leo, that so sucks. Say it ain't so.' Gino cocked his head and listened. 'On the bright side, do you hear AC/DC?'

  Magozzi pulled his cell phone out of his breast pocket. 'New ring tone.'

  '"Highway to Hell." How appropriate.'

  'Hang on, it's Grace. Hey, Grace.' He was quiet for a long time, his face growing darker the longer he listened. 'Are you sure? Shit. Okay, read it to me and we'll work it.' He grabbed a pen and tablet and started scribbling furiously. 'Got it. I'll get back to you.' He snapped his phone closed and shoved the tablet over to Gino. 'They found pre-posts for all the murders, plus two more. Willy Loman's looking less likely every second. They think this one is in Minnesota, and want us to make some cop-to-cop phone calls and see if we can match it with a body.'

  Gino spun the tablet around and read what Magozzi had written. 'Huh. Hello, of course that's Minnesota. Big water, North Shore, hell, that's Lake Superior, the Norwegian Riviera. Let me give old Ole Olssen a call. He's been a Duluth cop for about a hundred years.'

  Magozzi looked at him. 'Tell me there's not really an Ole Olssen in Duluth.'

  'Tons of them. Where'd you think the Ole-and-Lena jokes came from?'

  'And you know him because…?'

  'He was down here for that BCA crime-scene deal last year, remember? I went to the stupid lectures and you went to the movies with Grace, thank you very much. Anyway, Ole and I bonded over krumkakke.'

  'I don't know what that is.'

  'Those hollow cookie things the Swedes make, or maybe the Norwegians or the Dutch, damned if I know. Shit, they were good.' He started punching numbers into the phone.

  'You know his number by heart?'

  Yeah, we talk now and then.' He raised his eyes and looked at Magozzi. You said they found two more posts. What's the other one?'

  'They're working that one with the Feds. They don't think it's happened yet.'

  Gino's lips pursed in a silent whistle until he was distracted by the phone. 'Hey, Ole, you son of a bitch, you know that recipe you sent me? It sucked big time. Tasted like dead sheep with the wool still on. And while we're talking about dead things, you have any homicides up there for last January? Well, do a little digging and get back to me ASAP. This is more important than you would believe, and I am not going to tell you what it's about until you deliver the goods.'

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grace couldn't explain it, not even to herself, and it was embarrassing. She missed her house. They all spent a lot of nights at Harley's when they were working on a pressure deadline - it was a natural, comfortable thing. She had a guest room designated just for her, as they all did, with furniture, a stash of clothes, and everything in the world Harley thought would make her comfortable. But it wasn't her house.

  It was too big, for one thing; three nightmare stories of too many points of ingress and egress to watch; too many big open rooms that put you endless yards away from anyplace to hide. She could take a breath in her tiny house with its tiny rooms, steel doors, and barred windows, but here, she never felt really safe. Harley understood that, and occasionally reminded her that he had a gate across his driveway and enough weapons stashed to arm a small country. But he didn't have enough security cameras; didn't have a pressure pad on his front porch; didn't even have a gun on his person at all times, or a wary ey
e and ear for anything out of order.

  Harley couldn't get over the silly idea that most people were basically good. He didn't think the UPS guy was a terrorist, or that the mailman was a psychopath. None of them did. Only Grace.

  That difference in perspective had put her at her computer station, searching for the worst this morning, while Harley, Roadrunner, Annie, and Special Agent John Smith frantically scrambled to grab the brass ring that was the victory of good over evil. They had to believe they had a chance. That given just a little time, they could find whoever it was that was Bert's barmaid in a city of roses, near deer, before a killer took that person's life.

  'Okay, okay,' Harley filled the room with his voice in boom mode. 'No liquor licenses in Portland with the name of Bert, which may not mean anything. Could be a grandfathered license that goes with the establishment instead of the current owner - Annie, can you check city of Portland ordinances, see how the licensing works?'

  'You got it.' Annie clicked at her keyboard with fingers flat, so she didn't chip her nails. They were still polished pearl to match the Gatsby outfit she'd worn yesterday instead of today's maroon silk, a tragic measure of how quickly she'd been forced to make herself presentable when Roadrunner had wakened them in a panic. The jacket was feather-trimmed and cropped, the pants were wide and fluttery, and thank God she'd remembered the T-strap pumps or she would have looked totally undone. She focused on her task and blanked out Harley barking orders to the rest of them.

  'So Portland was the City of Roses - maybe too easy. Let's do some free association. Forget the city's nickname or moniker; what other cities bring roses to mind?'

  'Pasadena,' Agent John Smith piped in. 'The Rose Parade.' 'Exactly. Check the liquor licenses there, see if you can find a Bert. What else have you got, Roadrunner?'

  'Austin, surprisingly. They've got rose growers all over the place.'

  'Christ.' Harley slapped his forehead. 'Every rose I ordered for the back gardens came from Jackson and Perkins. Damn. Where the hell are they? Medford, Oregon. That's it. Grace, can you check that out?'